Showing posts with label broadcast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label broadcast. Show all posts

Real Life vs. Fiction. Journalism vs. Marketing.

In a fragmented media world, where everyone has a gazillion options for where to get information/entertainment/whatever, journalists are desperate to draw in an audience.

A local news anchor tweeted the note above, referencing Breaking Bad, the popular cable program that sometimes airs during the same time slot as her newscast.

Is her correlation to the fictional show in bad taste or smart marketing?

Should Journalists Make The Alleged Bigots' Statements Public?

A pair of local school officials are in the news because they allegedly had text conversations that were racist and sexually charged.

When you watch the report above or if you read about the story in most outlets, you will not learn what the two allegedly said beyond the n-word. The transcriptions of the texts have been published in a few less-mainstream outlets.

Should news organizations present the full transcripts or should journalists apply moral standards and not allow such language or behavior go public?

I'm a Hero. News at 11.

A reporter in Phoenix was covering a story about flooding when he and the cameraman stumbled across a woman screaming for help.

So the reporter helped her. And the cameraman shot the rescue. Then they aired that on the news.

Did the reporter do something heroic and thus become newsworthy? Or is he simply casting himself as a hero by airing his good deed?

If you had rescued that person, would you have broadcast it?

Cherri Gregg: "People don't know what they don't know until we tell them."

When Cherri Gregg was a little kid, she always wanted to know what was going on before anyone else. And she was always going around telling people about what she discovered.

"I always dreamed of being a reporter," she said yesterday in class.

She got sidetracked though. After studying communications at Boston University, she earned her law degree from Howard University. Then she practiced intellectual property litigation for eight years. And she married a fellow lawyer, whom she met on her first day of law school.

"I didn't like it," Cherri said of being an attorney. "I didn't love it with the same passion that my husband did."

So she did some research on graduate schools and wound up at Temple. Immediately, she became involved with TUTV and she reported and anchored for Temple Update. She freelanced video packages for a Turkish news organization. She kicked ass in her classes, she developed contacts and sources and she built her demo tape.

"It's on you," she said. "You can't blame your professors if you don't succeed."

Halfway through her graduate studies at Temple, Cherri began working as a part-time reporter at KYW Newsradio. Her immediate supervisor is a Temple grad, as is the news director and most of the reporters (some of whom also teach at Temple). After completing her graduate program, Cherri went full-time at the station.

Last month, she covered the inauguration of Barack Obama. She watched Beyonce lip-sync from up close. She reports, writes, tweets, shoots images, packages video and creates podcasts while covering multiple stories every day.

"There's no chilling," she said. "It is fast-paced."

But she loves it.

"We get to be thought leaders," Cherri said. "People don't know what they don't know until we tell them."

Here are a few other things that stood out for me:

• Her reason for going into law is the same as why she became a journalist: "I want to give voice to people who can't speak for themselves."
• She thinks she'll go to television news at some point but she knows she has much to learn still.
• She believes in making strategies, figuring out what she needs to do to get to where she wants to be.
• She thinks you should make a strategy too.
• As a journalist, you have to be comfortable around all kinds of people.
• Be nice to everybody. Who knows where people will wind up, and you don't want to burn bridges.

What stood out for you?

Carrying A Semi-Automatic Rifle in Virginia Is Legal. So Is This A Story?

A man walked into a grocery store in Virginia over the weekend and he was carrying an AR-15 rifle, like the one above. A few people called the police, who were dispatched to the scene.

The police spoke to the man but he was not arrested. He was not breaking any laws - he legally owns the gun and it was not concealed.

Is this a news story?

A few outlets covered the episode. One news organization chose not to. What would you have done?

If There Is Crazy Video, Does That Mean It's News?

There was a brawl in Old City last weekend when the bars closed. The video above was captured by a random person.

Is this news?

Several news outlets did stories about the brawl, including 6ABC, CBS3, the Daily News and Fox29.

What qualifies this as news? Is it a matter of having the dramatic video? Is it because people will see the raw video and talk about it? Is this an unusual event, and therefore newsworthy?

Or is this a non-story?

Denise James: "The Words Provide Context to What You See."

Denise James testified before city council when she was a teenager growing up in Detroit. The area newscasts covered the event and she wound up on air.

"They didn't get me," she remembered as she spoke to class on Tuesday.

She felt the newscast misrepresented her sentiment. And that sparked an idea in her mind.

"I could do that and I could be a more clear megaphone for people," she said. "I could assist people and get their voices out there more accurately."

She went to Michigan State University and then landed a job at WGPR, the first wholly African American-owned television station in the United States. It was a small station but a huge television market, so Denise reported alongside seasoned veterans, and she learned from them.

She spent a few years as a broadcast journalist at stations in North Carolina and then came to 6ABC, where she was a reporter for more than 23 years. She has since left the station and now she runs her own media company.

Here are a few things she said that stuck out to me:

• In broadcast journalism, a pen and notepad are almost as important as the camera, she said. "It's still about the writing," Denise said. "Content is king."
• Broadcast journalists write to sound and video. "It's my job to not get in the way of the marvelous images," she said. "I'm just a boat to deliver the messages. The words provide context to what you see."
• The reporter's job is to make the audience relate to the story, to help create that universal experience.
• It's important to be curious. You need to go beyond your personal interests.

• When you are writing, you need to pay critical attention to your presentation. Use active verbs. Vary the sentence length. And be aware of tense - most TV news is in the present or future tense.

• Journalists must remain ethical. Always. "The perception of impropriety can be worse than the impropriety itself," she said.

• Be careful what you put online. "If you don't brand yourself, someone else will," Denise warned.

• Talent is absolutely necessary but you also need something that will make you stand out when applying for jobs. Get involved with student groups, the school newspaper and TV station, and do internships.
• Start networking now, Denise implored. Even your classmates might help you get your foot in the door in the future. "Who you know might let you know if a door is opening," she said.

Stay Inside During Storms. Unless You Are a Journalist.

This ia a montage of reporters covering Hurricane Sandy from a CNN story.

I present it to you without comment. But I'm interested in your thoughts.

(FYI ... the video originally posted here was removed from YouTube. This one is quite similar.)

Get Your Camera Away From Me, Dog.

A REPORTER AND PHOTOJOURNALIST were covering a murder story when a friend of someone involved in the story approached the news team. He wanted the crew to leave, and he didn't want to be videotaped.

"Get your camera away from me, dog," he said as he slapped the camera away.

Then he walked back to his car and brandished a pistol.

The news crew turned this into a story. The lead story for the 5:00 PM newscast.

Is this news?

Watch the video above. Is it good TV or good journalism, or both?

Marc Zumoff: "When You're an Intern, You're in The Farm System."

MARC ZUMOFF WAS not the most popular kid in high school when he was growing up in Northeast Philadelphia. He was heavy and socially awkward.

"I wasn't really that dynamic," Zumoff said.

That lasted into his time while a student here at Temple.

Now, however, he gets paid to talk about basketball as the voice of the Philadelphia 76ers. He's one of around 30 professional basketball play-by-play announcers in the country. He gets front row seats, flies first class, stays in the best hotels and eats at high-end restaurants ... as his job.

His message to you?

"If you have similar aspirations," he said, "go for it."

What do you need to do to reach your dreams? Here's Zumoff's advice:

• Believe in yourself.
• Start reaching for your dreams now. "Have a personal mission statement," Zumoff said. "Everything you do should lead to that goal."
• Join associations and make friends. It doesn't matter how good you are if you can't get your foot in the door. You need to know people.
• Do an internship. "It's a great way to make contacts," he said.
• While interning, be a model citizen. Dress appropriately. Be polite. Take the initiative and do the work required of you with a smile, and do it before you're asked to do it.
• Your bosses are watching. Interns get promoted. "Two of my former interns are now my bosses," Zumoff said. "When you're an intern, you're in the farm system."

• Talk to people doing what you want to do. Ask them how they reached their position.
• Try writing letters. You want to stand out.
• Make the connections when making connections. Who do you know in common? And ask folks who they can connect you to.
• Build a network of positive people who can help you in your career.
• Kiss asses? "Yes," Zumoff said. "That's exactly what I'm saying."

Here are a few other things he mentioned:

• If he talks about the NBA lockout, he, the team or his company could be fined.
• Eric Snow did not fall asleep on air.
• Charles Barkley was everything a professional basketball superstar was not supposed to be - relatively small and sort of heavy. But he was awesome.
• Same for Allen Iverson. "He did what he did and he shouldn't have," Zumoff said, referring to Iverson's talents despite his relatively diminutive size. "He lived and played with reckless abandon."

• While attending Temple, Zumoff drove heavy equipment trucks at a scrap iron/ steel yard.
• He spent his first five years after college in radio news.

What stood out for you?

Does Good Video Make It Newsworthy?

THERE WAS A dramatic rescue of a motorcyclist trapped under a car as his bike went up in flames.

A local television station has raw video of the rescue (see here). The video has since run on newscasts around the world.

Is it a big story? Or is it simply dramatic video?

What newsworthiness criteria qualify this story as an international phenomena?

A Story About Beyonce As a National Distraction From Recent Troubles?

AFTER BEYONCE SHOWED off her belly at the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, letting people know she's pregnant, people tweeted at a rate of 8,868 tweets per second, a record for the social media service.



The story above says that people needed Beyonce and her news in the wake of recent national issues - bad economy, earthquake, hurricanes, etc.



Is that true? Or were the news folks just looking for an excuse to talk about Beyonce, and try to draw those viewers in?



Is her pregnancy news?

BE AFRAID! THERE'S A HURRICANE COMING!

WAS THE HURRICANE coverage responsible?



Did your local newscasts in the Philadelphia region do a fine job of keeping people aware of the storm and potential dangers?



Or did they primarily build fear with their 36 hours of non-stop storm coverage (most of the local stations ran live, local news from early Saturday through Sunday afternoon).



And what about the video above? Is that news?

Consumer Reporter Nydia Han: "If You Plan to go Into TV News, You're Going to Work Hard."

NYDIA HAN WANTED to be a magazine writer. But after interning at a San Francisco television station while she was in college, she became hooked on TV news.

"I loved the immediacy of it," she said during her visit to class yesterday. "I really saw the power of TV news, and the ways it can contribute to the world."

Her path to becoming an anchor and consumer reporter for 6ABC's Action News, one of the most popular local newscasts in the country, was not easy. The southern California-native had/ has hints of the Valley girl accent of her youth. One potential employer told her that she had too many wrinkles on her face - when she was in her low 20s. One of her college journalism professors actually suggested she stick to print.

But she persisted. Despite the boatloads of rejection.

She landed a job in Pocatello, Idaho. She was a one-man band there - shooting her own video, performing interviews, editing the packages and doing live shots by herself. It was tough work but working at a smaller market station taught her numerous skills and career lessons.

"At a small market station, you can make mistakes and not get fired," Han said.

She moved on to Oklahoma City where she became a tornado-chasing news and crime reporter. She also started doing consumer affairs stories there, and that led to her next gig as a consumer reporter in Houston. She came to Philadelphia in 2002.

She finds consumer stories to be tremendously rewarding.

"You can genuinely help people," she said.

Here are a few other things she said that stood out to me:

• She said, "Don’t get into journalism if you’re just looking for a glamorous, high-paying job.”
• It can take a long time to get to the point as a journalist when you earn a high salary. At her first job, she earned $14,000 annually. She bought her clothes at Walmart.
• Crime is not her favorite thing to cover but some reporters love it. There is an adrenaline rush when covering breaking stories. And the viewers care, she said.
• In news, you might work a story all day and then right before the newscast, something else will break. You'll have to jump to the breaking story. The previous work may never be seen. It happens.
• "At the end of the day, TV news is a business, too," Han said. "We want to do good community journalism but we have to win our time slot."

• Every day, she makes phone calls to potential sources, she performs research, logs tapes, writes stories and sets up interviews. Plus, she acts as a weekend anchor and weekday fill-in anchor.
• She gets ideas for stories from emails, phone calls and on facebook.
• Her goal is to find stories that will have the greatest impact.
• Most of her stories run about 90 seconds. Some run for around 2:30. And she often begs to get an additional 10 or 20 seconds.

• She suggests you do multiple internships. And do one at a smaller market where you'll get to try numerous tasks and really be of use (you might even get on air).
• "Start looking for internships as soon as you can," Han said.
• During your internships, befriend a few reporters. Learn from them and after the internship, keep in touch with them.
• Take the initiative. Do stuff. Offer to help. Get involved!

• The future is online, she said.
• "If you plan to go into TV news, you're going to work hard," she said.

(by the way ... here is a link to her facebook page).

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)